Navigating the wilds of parenthood

Policy changes: paying for time booked and cancelations within 2 hours

Poppy is committed to creating a community that works for both families and caregivers alike.

This is no simple task given the different needs of both sides. But in every case, we work to assess what the right solution or policy is based on what is the best for the overall community to operate in a safe, respectful and sustainable way.

As we have grown and evolved, we’ve encountered situations that need updates on how we handle them. One such situation is making sure these highly qualified caregivers feel that providing care is a viable and sustainable job opportunity and that their time is valued based on the time they commit.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve found two areas that don’t adequately address this:

Parents currently pay only for the time used, not for the full time they booked a caregiver.

One of the reasons Poppy caregivers are so wonderful is because they treat these jobs as professionals. They arrange their schedules and commit to the time of the bookings while calculating the expected earnings towards what they need to earn. When parents return home early, there is significant disruption to their schedules and expected pay.

Cancellations within 2 hours. In the same vein, when parents cancel within 2 hours of the booking start time, there is a significant impact on the caregiver’s schedule and earnings.

Our mission is to create an environment where wonderfully experienced people want to and can help parents out in times of need. To do that, we need to advocate for policies that make it worth doing for them.

To address these two concerns, we will be making two policy changes that will go into effect June 18, 2018.

Bookings will be charged based on the time booked. As parents, we get that it’s hard to estimate time needs but we ask that you make as accurate an assessment as possible so that caregivers can accept based on what the expected time will be. We also know that plans change so if you do need to request time changes, please do so with as much advance notice as possible. Once the booking starts, your card will be charged for the time booked (with a 15min grace period if necessary – eg. if you come home 30 minutes early, you’ll be charged only for an extra 15 minutes). Overall, we ask that you think about the caregiver’s time as you would any other professional – both in returning early or asking to extend time.

If you need to extend time beyond the requested end time, please reach out to the caregiver with as much notice as possible to make sure they’re okay with extending. If it’s fine with them, then you will be charged for the time used, including the extended time.

Cancelations within 2 hours will be charged 50% of booking or $30(whichever is greater). Again, we are sympathetic to the fact that last minute things come up and plans change but when a caregiver has planned on a full day of work that is canceled last minute, it isn’t just a matter of filling the time with something else – it’s a very disruptive experience on one’s day. The regular late cancel fee of $30 for canceling within 24 hours will remain in place.

As always, we welcome your thoughts and dialogue as we work to build the modern village that supports our families.